The idiot starter guide is go to the left hand column. Click Acquisition, click All Traffic, then click Source/Medium. That gives you an overview of where the traffic is coming from to your site. It what I use 95% of the time. You can change how many rows you view down the bottom of the page. You can also change the dates to get an annual overview, which is very helpful when I've needed to understand the fall of traffic from a particular site for example.
There are masses more tools available, but I need an idiots guide too then.
Analytics
spam spam spam
as well as referral spam traffic I start getting a plenty of direct traffic however these direct traffic is spam,
the reasons are,
1. 100% bounce rate
2. No page views
3. 100% new visitors
Which means, we can also receive spam traffic as direct which we can't really do anything about it.
the reasons are,
1. 100% bounce rate
2. No page views
3. 100% new visitors
Which means, we can also receive spam traffic as direct which we can't really do anything about it.
I was investigating spam referrals on my stats fairly recently; for some time I've been pestered by referral spam from event-tracking . com (and one or two others) and despite my best efforts to block it at various levels including my .htaccess file it's still showing in my analytics.
I eventually tracked down a very useful explanation and a solution; it turns out that these particular attacks are known as "Ghost Spam" and apparently target Analytics directly without even visiting your website (no, I don't know how), so no amount of blocking will get rid of them.
All these spammers are doing is corrupting your Analytics, which is a significant nuisance given the skewing effect of a handful of spam records on a relatively small genuine amount of traffic. Although the Ghost Spam can't be blocked, the results can be removed from your stats by setting up a permanent filter.
I found this article very helpful, with good step by step instructions. Well worth a look.
I eventually tracked down a very useful explanation and a solution; it turns out that these particular attacks are known as "Ghost Spam" and apparently target Analytics directly without even visiting your website (no, I don't know how), so no amount of blocking will get rid of them.
All these spammers are doing is corrupting your Analytics, which is a significant nuisance given the skewing effect of a handful of spam records on a relatively small genuine amount of traffic. Although the Ghost Spam can't be blocked, the results can be removed from your stats by setting up a permanent filter.
I found this article very helpful, with good step by step instructions. Well worth a look.
I read a similar article the other day and followed the exact instructions, but it made no difference to my analytics. When I verified what I'd done, it said it had found 4 visits or so on that particular analytics view, but in reality they were all still there.
I'll have a read of this article now and see what else it suggests. I have enough referrals that my analytics are skewed too.
I'll have a read of this article now and see what else it suggests. I have enough referrals that my analytics are skewed too.
+1Nemo wrote:I read a similar article the other day and followed the exact instructions, but it made no difference to my analytics. When I verified what I'd done, it said it had found 4 visits or so on that particular analytics view, but in reality they were all still there.
I'll have a read of this article now and see what else it suggests. I have enough referrals that my analytics are skewed too.